CES 2014 — LG announces Lifeband Touch fitness tracker

It’s tough competition at the top, and LG doesn’t want to be left behind. While it’s probably not in any danger of actually being left behind, it’s important to try and keep up anyway, and LG is doing just this with its announcement of the Lifeband Touch fitness tracker.

As you can see adorning the wrists of the two lovely ladies above, the water resistant Lifeband Touch keeps track of calories burned during daily activities, steps you’ve walked and other fitness stats. An OLED touchscreen display acts as a watch and shows the wearer notifications, as well as allowing them to check exercise goals, and control music.

The LG Lifeband Touch is compatible with Android and iOS devices using Bluetooth 4.0 and a partner LG fitness app to interact with your handset. There’s another unique accessory — a pair of ‘heart rate earphones’ which use the blood flow in your ears (amazing!) to measure the wearer’s heart rate.

Entering a market probably dominated by FitBit and the Jawbone Up, it’ll be interesting to see how LG carves out a niche for itself here.

It looks like LG will make the formal announcement once CES 2014 kicks off, but at this stage there’s little by way of detail in terms of pricing or availability. We’re hoping it won’t be too far off, because a little more competition in this space is always a good thing.

Chris Rowland Managing Editor

Chris has been at the forefront of smartphone reporting in Australia since smartphones were a thing, and has used mobile phones since they came with giant lead-acid batteries that were "transportable" and were carried in a shoulder bag.

Today, Chris publishes one of Australia's most popular technology websites, Ausdroid. His interests include mobile (of course), as well as connected technology and how it can make all our lives easier.